Match making, play with others, storm shield defense, why is it so hard to join a game I want to play?

When I switch to public and click "play" from a quest I rarely get anyone joining me. I'm on my own nearly every time.

When I try to join others (I need a storm shield defense for a quest), the lobby isn't clear what mission I'm joining, and then in the mission the other players don't help.

I've also had evenings where every lobby was the same players. That'd be fine if they were players I hadn't already quit a mission with. Give me somebody, anybody else, not the dude dropping f-bombs at his little kid on a live mic.

Am I doing this all wrong, or is the matching system garbage?

In the past, weren't you able to select the type of mission you wanted to join? That'd be ideal, even if it took a little longer to match.